Adult sentence lengths in correctional services have dropped to a five-year low according to newly released data from Statistics Canada, representing a nearly 81% decrease relative to 2016 incarceration rates.
However as the largest drop in admissions is for sentences under three months, local communities have started to find a newfound approach to petty-crime policing.
According to Superintendent Cliff O’Brien from the Calgary Police Service (CPS), “For minor offences, to incarcerate someone for less than a year the recidivism rate was quite high. What we’ve found is that when you come out, you’re actually more bitter, and perhaps you’ve learned some things that we don’t want you to learn,”
As for why incarcerations lengths are down overall, O’Brien said that, “What’s happened is that cases that I would think are prosecutable, the Crown is having to make some very difficult decisions and having to drop cases that are prosecutable and might lead to a sentence, but they’re just going on and we just don’t have the resources to deal with all of this,”
“The Alberta Crown rightfully said that,`geez some of these people are sitting longer in pretrial custody than the actual sentence they would actually receive had they pled guilty.’,” O’Brien stated.
Many of those cases are now being handled by alternative crisis response measures and community supports, such as the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) team and Alpha House in Calgary. Interest in these types of approaches has increased in recent years, especially in light of the 2020 BLM protests calling for more accountable policing.
O’Brien highlighted that looking for alternative community support in place of some forms of policing is a good thing. “If there’s a way to treat that mental health or addiction, instead of just incarcerating them and then having them come out in six to eight months & we’re back out here where nothing has changed, I think that makes a lot of sense,”
As for residents experiencing the results of these policies firsthand, Phoebe Sawchuk who’s lived along Calgary’s 17th avenue for the past 3 years says, “I haven’t really seen a difference over the time that I’ve lived here,”
“I actually noticed that vandalism and property crime went down during COVID,” said Sawchuk
Sawchuk has volunteered at Calgary’s volunteer-run pay-what-you-want store, Good Neighbour, for the past four months and personally encounters many of the vulnerable Calgarians these new approaches are targeting.
“We should be putting more public funds into social services that serve the same purpose as the DOAP team or as Alpha House. I don’t think we should have to rely on mutual aid groups. I think they do great work, but it’s a burden that they shouldn’t have to take the weight of,” said Sawchuk.
Sawchuk echoed the same sentiment that many advocates for alternative policing and crisis response initiatives have made clear in recent years, “I feel way more comfortable calling the DOAP team for someone in distress than I do calling an ambulance. Or even if there was a way to call medical assistance without the police having to be there,”
O’Brien made clear that the CPS is doing what they can under this legislation, and regardless of the specific type of crime, in the end, these are community issues that we need meaningful communities to assist with and not just put on police services.
“We have to figure out what role the police should play, and that just because we’re the only 24/7 response to crisis, that does not mean that we should go to everything,” said O’Brien.
Founded in 1981, the mission of Calgary’s Alpha House is “To provide safe and caring environments for individuals whose lives are affected by alcohol and other drug dependencies.”
In 2005 Alpha House started a partnership with the Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS), where the DOAP team was formed to act as a mobile response unit for street-level intoxication. The DOAP team responds to calls from businesses, community members and homeless-serving agencies, and is aimed at facilitating access to shelters, health care, addiction treatment, and supportive housing.
The DOAP Outreach team can be reached 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 403-998-7388.